The Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs within the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) is funding the Harold Rogers Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) to help prevent and detect the abuse of pharmaceutical controlled substances in this country.

Forty three states now have operational PDMPs and six states and Guam have enacted legislation to establish a PDMP but these PDMPs are not yet fully operational. Since the grant program started with the FY 2002 appropriations, grants have been awarded to 49 states and 1 U.S. territory to support efforts to plan, implement, or enhance a PDMP. (more…)

AMC Health a provider of telehealth solutions is providing a money back guarantee to reduce hospital readmissions for high-risk patients. This offer will enable hospitals, health plans, ACOs, home health agencies, and other customers to use a multi-faceted program to reduce hospital readmissions for high risk patients.

The AMC Health guarantee offers a full refund if readmissions don’t decline by at least 10 percent within 90 days of deployment providing a proven Interactive Voice Response (IVR) program along with case management initially deployed by the Geisinger Health Plan (GHP) and AMC Health. (more…)

The Wireless Life Sciences Alliance (WLSA) is gearing up to present a stellar lineup of speakers and rich networking opportunities at its 8th Annual “Wireless Health Convergence Summit” to take place May 28-30 at the Omni Hotel in San Diego.

The theme of this year’s conference “Moving Healthcare from Innovation to Adoption” will focus on educating and aligning stakeholders throughout the healthcare ecosystem on the many innovative solutions available driving enhanced health outcomes and more efficient healthcare services. Today, innovative ideas are needed by healthcare providers, insurers, technology innovators, governmental and non-governmental agencies, patient advocates, and many others. (more…)

The National Commission on Physician Payment Reform released a report March 4th on Capitol Hill detailing sweeping recommendations aimed at reining in health spending and improving quality of care by eliminating the fee-for-service model by the end of the decade.

The Society of General Internal Medicine recognizing that the way physicians are paid drives the high level of spending convened the Commission last March. This independent Commission was funded in part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the California Healthcare Foundation. Physicians from a variety of specialties, public and private sector leaders, consumer advocates, and health policy experts took part in the discussions. (more…)

The “HHSentrepreneurs” program (www.hhs.gov/open/initiatives/entrepreneurs/index.html) is based on the HHS Innovation Fellows Program launched in 2012. HHS is building on the lessons learned during the program and seeks to have internal entrepreneurs along with external entrepreneurs work together to tackle some of the Department’s toughest challenges.

Internal entrepreneurs at HHS are working on solutions to deal with complex challenges. The goal is to enable internal entrepreneurs to have the flexibility to take professional risks and to establish innovations as a key business process. The deadline for internal entrepreneurs to apply for the program is April 1, 2013. (more…)

The medical technologies to include medical devices, imaging systems, and other technologies need to be effective, affordable, culturally acceptable, and easily accessible to individuals in the disparity population who need and can use the technology.

The proposal response must involve a formal collaboration with a healthcare provider or other healthcare organization serving one or more health disparity populations during Phase I and Phase II. (more…)

The Patient-Centered Coordinated Care Program, an initiative of the New York City-based Commonwealth Fund is accepting Letters of Inquiry (LOI) for projects designed to improve the quality of primary healthcare in the U.S.

The program makes grants to:

Collect and dissemination information on patients and their healthcare experiences and provide information on physician office systems and practices that are associated with high-quality patient-centered care

Assist primary care practices with the adoption of practices, models, and tools to help practices become more patient-centered with the ability to coordinate more closely with hospitals, specialists, and other public and private healthcare providers in their communities

The Commonwealth Fund is going to support projects in several areas to make medical homes more successful and to enable resource sharing. One of the future directions is to integrate the medical home with the medical neighborhood. The plan is going to support efforts to understand how medical homes can integrate and partner with the other providers in their community. This can include integrating with specialists, hospitals, and mental healthcare providers in both safety-net and commercial settings.